Trust us We're Experts

I'm reading this on advice of my lawyer... just kidding! DD1 recommended the book and she could be a lawyer if she wanted to be. She's good at negotiations in particular.

Don't let "Tommy Tomorrow's" (Dan Perkins') illustration on the cover put you off this book. It slams both sides of the aisle, and rightly so, for taking money from corporations to "guide the herd" - that's us- to the desired conclusions.

Party on Reggae!

Jimmy Cliff, one of the best in the bidness..  Yay!

I hang my head ... I'm not knitting.  Sis comes today and we will have an excellent chin wag!  Then we might go get some fish and chips and even go to the nursery that has everything under the sun for succulents  of which I brought several dozen teensie plantlets home from the travels.

I cannot get my pictures up for some reason.  Picasa doesn't work and flicker won't up load, ( I blame Google) so no pictures yet.  But I promise lot's of car pixs from "Woodies on the Wharf", and more flowers from thither and yon.  And even.... Cloud pix  from a Rancho!  Baby Birds just banded .. that sort of thing.

Milky way time lapse Vimeo

Plains Milky Way from Randy Halverson on Vimeo.


Thanks to DD2

keith o. on what happened and what he's up to

God Bless Rolling Stone.  And Kudos to DD1 for the head's up on this article. 

This is an excerpt of the interview they did with Olbermann:

"Were you ever censored by MSNBC?
No. What were they going to do about it? It was live. I will say this. Nobody ever said, "If you say this, you're going to be fired."
It's not about "NBC is evil." It's about that media structure—CBS, ABC, CNN, even some of the smaller operations are now multinationals, with these extraordinarily diverse holdings. The corporation is one of the great unheralded human inventions of destruction. It is a way to absolve from any personal liability a bunch of people. They form together in a massive id and they do whatever they want. In a corporate setting, there's nothing to stop Rupert Murdoch or Disney from doing whatever the hell they want with the news. They could turn it into propaganda for the Chinese government or the socialist party of America, and who's going to stop them?" 


This whole article ( see it HERE) is very worth reading.  We, as a people, have to start taking back our country from these Vultures.  Our fighting forces do NOT need to be fighting any more of these guys' wars of conquest for resources, period.  The whole idea of that happening again really sucks, if you ask me.

Knitting report:

The Yukon Leaves socks are chugging along, with sock one up to the gusset, Yay!  When I finish it I'll show it off.  There's been no other knitting going on because we went to see your daughters and did a lot of very fun stuff.  More on that later, too.

Angel Cats and Nature, and Flowers, Sea Flowers.

These are a few random favorites from past and present that I wanted to share.  I just finished reading the book by David McCullough called John Adams.  After reading all that Adams went through, I really wanted to get back into the natural world, where "life is beautiful all day long".

 

This is a David Austin Rose, and looks like a beautiful Peone as well.

A lovely thing happened by accident one evening when I was trying out things.

Flower of the Sea

Sweet little Tuna, now the Angel Kitty of the family.

Frogs!  These from the San Francisco Science Jungle

Metamorphic Layers from the Ocean Sediments at Point Lobos

Nature's Pixel Magic!

One of the little workers that keeps our Natural world working

San Francisco Arboretum Foliage

Wild Rose from Santa Cruz Mountains

Wild Flower on the trail

The last teacup. And new Pumpkin tea set finally fired and home.

DB has been visiting his sisters, and one of the things we usually do is to all pile into the Jeep and go down to get fish and chips at Mrs. Kelley's. Then we go walkabout at the end of Shelter Island. DH takes our doggie for a walk, which is more like a romp to get W's round fat tongue a nice bright red, and sister and I checked out some yachts in the basin, while Bro looked at the Friendship Bell. We are a sister city to a city in Japan, amongst others inthe world.

DH was joking that Wolfie looks like a stuffed shaggy teddy bear, and his tongue looks like one of those felt tongues that is sewn in. Wolfie is too cute when he's "smiling".

We also went the next day to go poking around the nearby collectible shops to see what we could see. I was looking for a sixth tea cup/saucer to round out my "tea set". I found a very pretty painted one ..front and center.. to go with the five I've collected, or been given, over the years.

Last thing is the finish pumpkin tea set. I really sweated this one getting done and home in intact. You never know what could happen in a firing.

I love tea cups but really never don't wanted more than I can use for a a tea party someday.  I'm thinking that's sily.  Why not another collection of beautiful ceramic things?  DH will shiver if he reads this.   

Bizarro of the Jungle

Art imitates my life.  I just couldn't pass this one up. 

New African Violet pots in use

All the African Violets are now in pots, and the one pot that I thought was going to be monstrously ugly is fine, since the violet leaves covered up the electric orange lip. 

There are so many flowers in the back county. I'll be sharing some of then later. My favorite is Ceanothus, but I'm told that it isn't a native to California.

Microkopter

Though this is not as quite cute as the radio controlled Tiny Astrea chopper  that got grounded several years for flying too close to Big Astrea's airspace, it is a very interesting little thing.  I'm sure there is all sorts of scientific and militaristic interest in it right now.

Have a look!

http://mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/VideoAbspielen?id=188

Thanks for the tip, from Pina

Wolfie's tongue, Geranium and Roses

DH and I just love this little dog's tongue.  DH says that it looks like one of those felt tongues that are sewn in.

Beautiful little ruffled and scented Angel Face tea rose.  I love this rose as much as any other and will replace it someday when I find just the right bush.

My sister knows the name of this rose but I've forgotten.  What delicate and perfect gradation of color it has!

Not a rose but certainly deserving of admiration.  Make this one big to see the wonderful flower form.  White Geranium.

Have a wonderful weekend coming up. May you walk with beauty all around you. You will always, always find it.

New bug site.. Awesome! Birds, too!

While outside setting up to water the roses, lemon tree, and Iris this morning, I heard a bird singing on the telephone wire.  I dashed inside to get my camera, and sadly the bird did a flit.  It had a lot of yellow and some black barring around the head, so I'm pretty sure it was a Bullock's Oriole but I'll never know now!  The picture is from this wonderful bird site that I've added to Some of My Favorite Blogs

However, nature provides entertainment without stint, so I looked down at my feet, turned over a pot so I could rest a foot on it, and there was something sort of interestingly patterned underneath.


This was what it was.  A spider I'd never seen!  I love spiders, except I do kill the deadly ones.  You might like to check out that whole site.  Lots and LOTS of bugs are listed.  Back to the spider.  The poor terrified thing took off for under the stucco.  I really gave it a fright!

There you have the Bird report AND the Bug report.